The IKEA Dictionary

By Lars Petrus

This site is not affiliated with IKEA in any way.

Part of what makes IKEA unique is their product names. Each name means something, often in a funny or ambigious way. When IKEA went international, they decided to use the same Swedish names everywhere. This makes sense from an organizational sanity standpoint, but it deprives most of the world of this particular joy.

Until now!

IKEA product names fall into a few main groups.❞ Proper Swedish words.❞ Improper Swedish words. IKEA laughs at the ‘rules’ of human language!☺☺ First names. Mostly Swedish, some Scandinavian, occasional exotic names.✖Geographical names. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish. Yes, there are patterns. Here is a map of all 320 places★ A few names that defy categorization.? Mystery names I haven’t figured out… Currently 130 out of 1362 names.

THIS SITE IS INCOMPLETE AND VERY MUCH UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Even the defined words can be incomplete (or wrong), since the words are deliberately ambigious, and several places have the same name. Send feedback to ikea@lar5.com